Glenville, Curheen, Co. Galway

Such deliberate symmetry at the back of a house, where practicality usually wins out over appearance, is uncommon enough that it stands out as one of the building's more telling features. The front, by contrast, presents the kind of composed, three-bay face that any observer of the period would expect, but it is worth pausing over the detail of the door before moving on: a carved panelled timber piece flanked by Tuscan columns, an entablature, a moulded lintel and a spoked fanlight, the whole arrangement set within a round-headed opening with a limestone surround. Tuscan columns, the plainest and sturdiest of the classical orders, were a common choice for doorcases of this era precisely because they lent gravity without excessive ornament, and here they do their job well.

The house dates to around 1845, a detached three-bay, two-storey building with hipped slate roofing and paired limestone ashlar chimneystacks rising centrally from the ridge. Its walls are roughcast rendered, with pebbledashing to the rear, a practical finish that would have helped shed rain from the exposed elevation. Most of the original six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows survive, complete with their sash horns and, in places, partially exposed sash boxes, small carpentry details that reveal how the windows were built into their frames rather than simply fitted. A round-headed stairs window to the rear, glazed with a three-over-six pane sash, marks the position of the staircase from outside, a common device in houses of this size and date. Taken together, the surviving joinery, the tooled limestone sills, and the unaltered proportions of the front elevation give the building what might be called a patina of age, the accumulated, unforced evidence of a house that has not been substantially reworked since it was built.

The house sits within its own grounds, approached through entrance gates set back from the road, a modest but deliberate arrangement that would originally have framed the visitor's first view of the symmetrical front. Anyone studying the building from outside might look first at the doorcase, then walk around, where possible, to compare the studied balance of the front with the more unexpected mirrored projections at the rear, a detail that repays a second look precisely because it was clearly not left to chance.